Page 228 of Season Warriors & Wolves

“Plan B,” I murmured to myself, backing away. “Plan. Fucking. B.”

My vision was clouding with black specs and the wound on my shoulder pulsed with more than pain. Reaching to my pocket, I pulled a small vial of mirk root and chugged it. Shrugging the dizziness off, I waited for the dangerous potion I’d been concocting for months to work. My chest weighed a rock with the next breath I took. Everything blanketed with bright colours that pulsated and glowed, my heartbeat louder than drums. When my senses had reached the high of the drug, I searched and searched, fading and breaking through bodies until—until I spotted another Empath hidden in the distance.

The man knocked back a bow and aimed at me, the arrow flying directly through my palm, breaking only the leather of my gloves and trapped in the metal. The fight was not even a fight. The man was bleeding and wheezing under my grip when I took out the sachet red clary that had taken me months to collect. Das a’fasea. Death of a witch. The small flower only grew on a Celesteel blessed land where the blood of a Crafter had been spilled.

There was pain. And there was this.

I pried the barely conscious Empath’s mouth open and spilled the crushed powder of dried red clary on his tongue.

His eyes immediately shut open and he took a long, deep breath before he screamed like death himself was crawling out of his veins.

“Melanthe,” I said, barely swallowing and rubbing a hand over the scar on my throat that was throbbed with sharp pain. “Where is she?”

He only screamed, face turning red and veins popping against the skin that was turning ashen and blue. “P-please,” he murmured. “Please.”

“Where is she!” I screamed, and blood filled my mouth. “Tell me where she is and I spare you the pain.”

When he pulled his lip tight, shaking his head, I spilled some more powder on my glove and rubbed it over his skin until black boils and puss began leaking out of the crack that the burn of the flower left behind.

My voice shook when I said, “Please. Please. I beg…I beg you. There are children behind that wall. Parents. Sisters and brothers. Please, do not make me hurt you when the whole world is hurting. Please. Let’s end this. Help me end this. Please.” Given up, I wiped tears with the back on my hand and took out my dagger, sparing him the torture of the poison, but he put trembling hand on mine, stopping me.

“Lagoon…the Crimson Lagoon of souls,” he choked out. “Near the old gates…of…Caligo. I’m sorry, I’m sorry…for all of it.”

Sobs shook me entirely, but I managed to nod at him. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” He drew his eyes shut before I plunged my dagger in his heart.

Backing away from the snow stained red, I faded to Red Coven, finding Penelope waiting right by the door along with Aradia.

The two hurried down the steps and almost crashed onto me. “Where to?”

“Crimson Lagoon of Souls.”

From her belt, Penelope pulled the dagger Sam had gifted Snow and clutched it tight before she opened a portal. “Let’s go.”

“Where is Visha?”

“Visha has to remain in Isjord.”

I grabbed and pulled her back. “Why?”

Her lips pressed tightly together. “Snow has opened the seal.”

I staggered a step back, the pain growing intently and spreading everywhere. “She…she’s done what?”

“Nia, please,” she pleaded, clinging to my arm. “We have no time. We have to help her.”

“W–what about killing Melanthe?”

“Melanthe has Urinthia. Urinthia will be there. She will help us. Visha said so. Macaria said so.”

The water was transparent, but thick and stained a rosy colour almost mirroring the skies and fog around us as it poured from three tall waterfalls. Crows cooed a continuous song and made the wind eerier, not making it any easier for us to swim the distance to the caves hidden under the heavy stream of the centre waterfall.

My stomach pulsed with vomit from the stink of magic encircling the round cave the size of a castle.

At its centre marked with a blood drawn crafter halo, stood Melanthe, a grimoire floating before her while she chanted an eerie song.

Her eyes rolled open and a wicked smile stretched across her face when she studied me and the two companions following me along. “You are dying,” she said sweetly.

Sweat coated my temples and it was becoming harder and harder to breathe, but death was still crossing the waters of Keres to me. There was enough time. Plenty of time. “I am not afraid,” I said, walking around the craft halo she was hiding in and right past where Urinthia was chained in the far corner. The veil around her was thick and crafted meticulously to never be broken through with means of whatever magic that was not Melanthe's.